I apparently have misjudged something Speaker Pelosi did. This morning I complained about her choosing to wear a headscarf in Syria; like everyone I had seen the pictures at the top of articles about her trip to Syria to meet with the government there. However, I seem to have been misled by the photograph's prominence into thinking that she was wearing it throughout her visit.
I've looked through a lot more photos of the trip now, and that is not at all the case. In fact:
1) She only wore it while visiting one particular mosque, and,
2) She did so in the Roman Catholic fashion rather than the Islamic fashion, as made clear by her crossing herself at the shrine of John the Baptist located in that mosque, and,
3) During the rest of her visit, both to Syria and Saudia Arabia, news photos show her without a headscarf. There's a good one in Yahoo News Photos of a Saudi police officer saluting the un-scarf'd Pelosi.
The photos played in the first news cycle as apparent submission to Islamist notions about a woman's place. That, coupled with the stories about her trip to Syria, to negotiate with a power supporting insurgent efforts against us in Iraq in despite of her President's request she not go, made the Speaker appear to be showing symbolic surrender. In addition, as the reports did not make clear that she was acting out of her own faith rather than submitting to another, she appeared to be hypocritical rather than faithful.
That impression, given by the way the news reports ran the headscarf photo with the stories about her diplomatic trips, was not fair. Indeed, as I reflect on it, it was defamatory (in the non-legalistic sense).
As she is herself a Catholic, there is obviously nothing wrong with her performing a (unusual in America, but traditional elsewhere) Catholic ritual; it is not hypocrisy or submission but a private act of faith to which she is wholly entitled. That should have been made clear, and prominently so, in these stories.
Further, far from the original impression, in fact Speaker Pelosi has given the Saudi world an image of a strong female leader who feels no need to submit to their religious requirement that she "be modest" and invisible. One hopes the photo of the saluting policemen is printed widely in the Islamic world. Good for her.
I still disagree with her decision to attempt diplomacy with Syria as if she were an executive rather than a legislative figure; but on the point of the headscarf, at least, she has done well. It appears the press can be as unfair to a San Francisco Liberal as it can be to a Texas Republican. I would like not to be unfair to anyone, and so wish to do what I can to correct the impression.
Pelosi/Scarf
Crossing the Wilderness III
Kim du Toit is having the next go-round of the game. We played the last time, thanks to Doc Russia tapping Grim's Hall for knife suggestions. There are a couple of new rules, and Kim picked up my addition from last time of asking for dog breeds:
Yes, it’s that time again.
Enough time has passed since last I posed the question that we can play the game once more. For the benefit of New Readers who weren’t around to play it before, here’s how it works. (Old-timers, note that some things have changed. RTFQ.)
The Challenge:
You have the opportunity to go back in time, arriving on the east coast of North America circa 1650, and your goal is to cross the North American continent, taking as much time as you need. When/if you reach the Pacific coastline, you’ll be transported back to the present day.
Your equipment for this journey will be as follows (taken back in the time capsule with you):
-- enough gold to buy provisions for the first five days’ travel
-- a small backpack containing some clothing essentials
-- a winter coat, raincoat and boots
-- waterproof sleeping bag
-- ONE long gun (but no scope)
-- ONE handgun
-- 1,800 rounds of ammo, divided between guns as desired
-- TWO knives, and (new) a “toolkit” knife
-- an axe
-- a box of 1,000 “strike anywhere” waterproof matches
-- a large-scale topological map book, binoculars and a compass
-- and a large U.S. Army First Aid kit.
Once there, you’ll be given a horse, a mule and a dog—and apart from that, you’re on your own. Remember you’ll be traveling through deep woods, open prairie, desert and mountains. You may encounter hostile Indian tribes and dangerous animals en route, which should be considered when you answer the following questions (and only these):
1. What long gun would you take back in time with you?
2. What handgun?
3. Which knives?
4.—New—What breed of dog?
The Rules:
1. Emails only will be accepted (comments are closed on this post), addressed to kim - at - kimdutoit dot com
2. Subject Line: Crossing The Wilderness. Not “What I’d take”, or “Guns and knives” or anything else: Crossing The Wilderness. Copy & paste the words from this post into your subject line.
3. Feel free to elaborate on your choices, BUT in no more than 100 words per answer. I don’t wanna read an essay on survival skills, nor do I wanna hear about the sixteen finalists you went through before you eventually made your choices. I’m looking for answers like: “Colt SAA in .45 LC, because it works and the .45 LC is a proven stopper.” (That’s 16 words.) Feel free to tell me (if you’ve played the game before) whether your choices have changed since last time, and why. Inside the 100 words.
4.—New Rule—multi-caliber combo guns will not be allowed, nor will barrel sleeves (which allow one to swap calibers), nor multiple barrels for the same receiver (eg. a Browning Citori with 12, 20 and 28ga barrels). You get one gun, one barrel / barrel set (in the case of shotguns or a double rifle, in the same caliber). Obviously, a gun which, unaltered, can fire different cartridges like the .357 Mag/.38 Spec or .45 LC/.410ga will be allowed.
5. Answers to me by next Saturday, April 7th. Results will be posted on April 9th.
Have fun.
To save the readers chasing it down, I said I'd join Doc in choosing a stainless lever-action .45 Long Colt rifle; I'd pick a Ruger New Vaquero in the same caliber; and a good bowie knife plus a skinning/utility knife. What constitutes a "good" bowie knife is personal to your physique: length of arm, strength of grip, and so forth.
I don't see any reason to change those choices.
I don't think I ever got around to answering my own questions: what breed of dog, horse, and mule? So let me do that now.
Dog: A Labrador mixed with something larger and heavier. These dogs are unfailingly brave and reliable, tough and with boundless energy. They are also strong enough to defend you, but have good hunting instincts. I've worked with several over the years, and one in particular, and they're great animals.
Horses: You want a fast horse that has good endurance. I'd suggest one of the gaited breeds, like a Tennessee Walker. They can cover ground fast and without putting strain on you. A non-gaited horse will have to canter (at least) to keep up with them, which will wear out their riders.
Mules: There are several good choices in mules. I'd say a draft cross with a Mammoth Jack donkey; they can carry a ton, and if you have to eat them, you'll have plenty of meat to dry and carry with you.
Blogging Award
We've been nominated for an award in the Thinking Blogger contest. I'm not sure Grim's Hall has ever been nominated for anything before, so it's nice to know.
Rurik is a longtime reader, and occasional commenter. I appreciate his interest, and the kind words.
VictoryPAC
Armed Liberal of Winds of Change would like you to know about his new venture, VictoryPAC. You've probably seen the video and letter of explanation:
I'm a liberal Democrat (pro-gay marriage, pro-choice, pro-progressive taxation, pro-equal rights, pro-environmental regulation, pro-public schools) who supported and supports the war in Iraq. As I tell my liberal friends "Did I miss the part where it was progressive not to fight medieval religious fascists?"Sounds good to me.
I've been waiting for four years for the White House to start really explaining the war to the American people, and to do anything sensible at all to maintain the political capital necessary to keep America in the fight - to keep us from withdrawing because the war is too messy, or too long, or just plain makes us feel bad.......
I've given up, and decided that it's up to each of us to start doing more. To that end, I've decided to start a PAC that will offer support to Congressional candidates of either party who support a foreign policy that doesn't involve wishing problems away.
What you may not know is that he's looking for videos like the first one, from Iraq war veterans. If you'd like to make one and don't know how, let me know (well, I don't know how either, but I can find out).
Site Changes
The contract I signed with Pajamas Media ended on 1 April. Though I elected not to continue as a PJM blog, I'd like it understood that Pajamas Media kept every particular of their contract with me, and I have no complaints with them. I simply wished to part ways, for reasons of my own.
The company of co-bloggers voted, and narrowly chose to enact some other form of ads in the future. I'll be looking into that directly; I'm not entirely sure how it works. In the meanwhile, the site is back to the pre-PJM format.
Violence and Moral Progress - III
Happily, as Grim has shown, Prof. Pinker's New Republic article is now in the clear. Thus, I am saved the trouble of trying to summarize it. It's good reading.
In comments to this post of Eric's, Grim argued that there is no such thing as "moral progress," and that it hasn't happened. This article, to me, looks like a good counter. Towards the beginning, Prof. Pinker lists some of the commonplace cruelties of the past:
"Cruelty as entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, conquest as the mission statement of government, genocide as a means of acquiring real estate, torture and mutilation as routine punishment, the death penalty for misdemeanors and differences of opinion, assassination as the mechanism of political succession, rape as the spoils of war, pogroms as outlets for frustration, homicide as the major form of conflict resolution..." (He was talking about violence rather than moral progress in general; that, I believe, is why the subjection of women is not on the list, though in some cases - I cited the Yanomamo before - the two go hand in hand.)
...things that, in our time and place, are not tolerated. That looks like progress to me; and since it's progress in the realm of how we treat our fellowman, what better name for it than "moral progress"? But the main thrust of the article is about decreasing violence. In particular, he is looking at a long-term downward trend in murder rates as documented by Manuel Eisner. He's talking about murder, not justifiable or necessary violence. Again, all over the west, it's been dropping for centuries. We still want to do each other harm, that's clear enough, but we don't act on that desire as often.
On foreign policy, his case is a little weaker; he cites the Human Security Brief a little selectively (war death rates are way down; terrorist death rates are up). But Grim himself has just made a better case for moral progress in the sphere of international violence, with his Blackfive post, particularly Part IV. When the Scots fought each other, Edward I intervened - to increase his own dominion. When the inhabitants of Yugoslavia fought each other, Europe and the US intervened - to try to make peace between them without taking a square inch. A moral improvement? How could it not be? I am honestly at a loss to see how these developments could be called morally neutral.
Movie Review
From Fox:
The best movie so far of 2007 is one in which Rose McGowan, best known to TV audiences as a kind witch on "Charmed," has her leg chopped off and replaced by a snap-on semi-automatic machine gun.That sounds great! Except for the part where it's a "semi-automatic machine gun."
@#$@#%#$%@#!!!
Somebody in Hollywood must know something about guns, given that they include them in their movies so often. In The Outlaw Josie Wales, they managed to custom-build cartridge conversions for historic Walker Colts, which (as Guns of the Old West magazine reported not long ago) nobody in the world was tooled up to make in 1976.
So how come they can't explain it to the reporters?
More on Self-Defense
In the comments to my last post, we struck up a conversation about self-defense and the "castle rule." I talked about an nineteenth-century Vermont case that discussed the common law rule as applied over several centuries; I've put the relevant text here.
The subject of Texas also came up. I've been doing just a little reading on the subject and wanted to share it. Justifiable homicide in Texas is covered by Penal Code 9.31 and 9.32(a). Under the current law, of which there is a good, brief discussion here, Texas already has a version of the duty to retreat/castle rule used by Louisiana and Vermont, and as listed in section 9.32(a)(2). You don't have to retreat if a reasonable man would not (because retreating would put you in more danger); but you do have to retreat if a reasonable man would do so (or at least, you lose the mantle of "self defense" if he would and you don't). Subsection (b), which removes the duty to retreat outright if the other is unlawfully entering your home, was added in 1995.
On September 1 of this year, the new version will go into effect. This specifically removes the duty to retreat, provided the person who acts has a right to be where he is. But the old law (section 9.32(b)) specifically provides that the duty to retreat doesn't apply when you're at home and the person you kill is unlawfully entering (otherwise, the fact that you were at home was still a factor in deciding whether retreat was "reasonable"). In other words, Texas didn't just enact the castle rule last week, but has had some version of it for years. The Texas Bar Journal published an article on the subject in 1967 ("Showdown on Art. 1225," 30 Tex. B.J. 339); I don't have the right kind of law library handy to read the article right now. States do differ in their self-defense rules, but the differences aren't as great as some people think.
In comments to the previous post, some have expressed a hope that this will reduce the incidence of lawsuits for wrongful death. Be careful. If you're dealing with a killing by a police officer, as one commenter was, the question of whether he used excessive force is a matter of federal constitutional law (shooting a man is treated as a "seizure" of his person by the state for Fourth Amendment purposes). No statute can change the standards for that. The standard, however, was and is "reasonable under the circumstances." A lot of those cases never see a jury because the undisputed facts simply don't create an issue as to whether the shooting was unreasonable.
Prison
I've written occasionally about the failures of the prison/rehabilitation system with which we attempt to correct criminals, although I have no personal experience with it. Here is someone who tested it, just to see how bad things could get. How bad? Roughly as bad as Abu Ghraib in just six days, even though the people selected to be guards and the prisoners were rigorously examined and subject to a background check.
Even if you have limited sympathy for convicted felons, consider what being a guard does to these men. Read through the history of the experiment, and then answer me this: if this is what prison does to free men who have always chosen to be good -- guards and prisoners alike in this case -- would it not be better to return to the old method of capital or corporal punishment for serious felonies?
Long prison sentences are a recent invention of modern society, after all. We have only been doing things this way for a couple of hundred years or less; we could stop doing it.
An Ugly Reminder
This story from Texas illustrates an ugly reality. According to the story, a married woman called her lover while her husband was playing cards. The husband came home early, to find the two having sex in a pickup truck. The wife screamed "Rape!" The lover tried to drive the truck away. The husband shot the lover. A grand jury has indicted the wife for manslaughter, but not the husband.
I will not comment in detail on any criminal case based on press reports alone, especially not this early in the proceedings. But as described in the article, the result is correct. If you're confused about the "manslaughter" you might want to check the definition under Texas law. A person is guilty of manslaughter if he recklessly causes the death of another person. Yelling "rape" under those circumstances certainly has the potential to cause death, even though someone else fires the bullet; and it shows an extreme lack of care for another person's life, yet there is no specific intent to kill as required for a murder conviction. ("Provocation" has nothing to do with this case, as some readers might think; the husband has every reason to think his wife is being kidnapped, and will be taken away and raped or killed, and the story betrays no reason to think he could stop it with lesser force. This has nothing to do with revenge.) Without researching Texas law, I can see a case for calling it "criminal negligence," and I would not be entirely surprised if she received an offer to plead to the lesser offense.
The reporter seems to think this has something to do with "Texas justice" but the basic idea works in any state I know about. It is an ugly fact that, important as the right to bear arms is, it comes with a price. If millions of people are ready and able to shoot, as they should be, sometimes the wrong person will be shot. With open eyes let us accept it. Let us also remember that rape is a horrible thing, and "rape" is a life-or-death word, to be used without hesitation when it really happens, but never at any other time.
Violence / Morality II
Joe promises to return to the subject he brought up last week. In the meanwhile, the Pinker article is now in the clear should anyone wish to read it in preparation for the discussion.
Adventures with bad horses
The horse company is down by the Etowah River, which forms a natural fence to one of the fields. At least it seemed to until this morning, when Mabeline the Bucking Queen decided to go for a swim.
We discovered this when a guy on the other side of the river started yelling at the owner's wife (really, she is the main partner in co-ownership). He said that one of her horses had swum the river, and was headed toward the highway. This information was relayed to me, along with a suggested crossing point ("If you go down by the middle field, the river is much less deep there.")
So I ran across the field, took off my boots, rolled up my pants, and began to cross the river. I discovered that it was not in fact very shallow at all once you got about halfway out. Still, I managed the crossing with no difficulty beyond being in to my upper chest. (Later, the lady herself wandered down to see if I had returned to the mare, in company with a young woman. She said, the younger lady reported to me, "Wow, I guess I was wrong. If he crossed here, he got soaked.")
The next piece of bad information turned out to be "toward the highway." The river is crossed by a state highway about two miles north -- it is audible when the big trucks go through. Anyone who had the slightest sense would, therefore, have intended "toward the highway" and "north" to be the same direction.
However, the road this guy lives on departs the highway to the south, then turns west and back north again, but terminates before returning to the highway. It is shaped like the letter J, with the highway making the top line on the J, and this fellow living near the end of the curved line on the side heading back up toward the top of the J. Being the sort of person who buys a house in the country and then apparently never goes outside, he had no sense of direction at all. He meant that the horse was headed in the direction that, if you were going that way on the road in your car, would eventually lead to the highway.
In other words, south.
And the guy was long gone.
It took about fifteen minutes for me to examine the area and determine that there was no evidence of a northbound horse, and very strong evidence that suggested it was unlikely: dogs in the area, fences she would have had to cross, and an older gentleman who reported having not seen any horses. He might have been napping, but he seemed to be busy with a woodworking project.
Moreover, there was no obvious sign of where Mabeline would have emerged from the river. She isn't shod, but she is a big girl. There should have been at least occasional tracks, but nowhere by the crossing point were any such evident.
As she crossed by a point where the Etowah has confluence with a small creek, I determined she must have gone up the creekbed. Unfortunately, as you will doubtless know, creekbeds going away from the river and into the upcountry branch repeatedly. These are stony bottomed creeks, and it's been very dry lately, but there were a few places of soft ground that could be examined for tracks.
I eventually determined her route, but it took more than two hours, and the route led straight into empty country. Calculating how far she could have traveled, I figured I ought to let people know where I was going before I went after her. So, I hiked back to the nearest road (recovering the young lady, who had been dispatched by the owner's wife to search near the road).
Fortunately, someone had thought to notify the sheriff's department, and they had put the word out to local farms. It turned out she'd wandered up on one a good ways south along that route, eventually coming back out into the pasture of another farm down the way on that side of the river. They'd stuck her in a barn until they knew who she belonged to.
So that is how I spent today: crossing rivers and tracking animals, trespassing on all sorts of people's land. I didn't find the horse, but I did find her trail; and also the prints of deer, one young male bear recently in the area, and coyote; saw several live frogs and birds and squirrels; and met a kindly old gentleman at his woodshop. I also ran across a historic still, and a witch's house in the forest (I gather from her license plate, marked "CRONE," and all the Wiccan stuff around the house).
In other words, it was a great day. These horses should get lost in the woods more often.
Com Check
Co-bloggers, drop me an email. There are a couple of things I'd like to discuss with you, and I want to make sure I have everyone's email address so we can do it all at once.
Webb & Gun
I must admit to serious disappointment in the judgment of Senator Webb's "possee," as the New York Times put it. I'm not so much talking about the question of hanging a trusted friend out to dry.
What I find inexplicable is that one of these two Former Marines selected a 9mm handgun as his defensive weapon. That is a direct violation of Rule 24.
Denial
The Hoover Institute has an excellent writeup on several strains of depature from reality in Western politics. Plus also one real problem that people are running from as fast as they can.
H/t: The Castle.
Welfare Reform
A cautionary lesson from the Philippines:
A day-care center owner armed with grenades and guns held more than 30 youngsters and teachers hostage on a bus Wednesday, then freed them after a 10-hour standoff that he used to denounce corruption and demand better lives for impoverished children.We'll be more convinced of your sincere desire to improve the lives of children when you don't threaten them with grenades.
Ducat, a 56-year-old civil engineer who has staged other attention-grabbing stunts in the past, then put the pin back in a grenade, handed it to a provincial governor, Luis "Chavit" Singson, and surrendered as Singson held his arm.Really, even if this didn't happen to be against the law, I'd still want you jailed.
"I accept that I should be jailed because what I did was against the law," Ducat said in an interview with The Associated Press shortly before the standoff ended.
Readings on Senatorial Perfidy
The best overall post on the subject is Cassandra's, which demonstrates how cleanly General Petraeus, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Pace, were ignored. General Petraeus in particular said what he would need at his recent confirmation hearings; the Senate voted to confirm him, and then to deny him those same resources.
Is it fair to call it perfidy (or treachery)? I think it is, for the reason Cassandra cites: not because they are trying to end the war, but because they are leaving people in place to die, knowing full well they will refuse those people the support they need either to win or to hold their ground. We had a long discussion at (former-pro war, now anti-war blogger) the Commissar's place not long ago (co-blogger Eric Blair gets mentioned toward the end)."We would have 45-day gaps, which would mean that part of a territory would basically be vacated to the enemy and ... you would have to fight your way back in," Pace said.In other words, your elected representatives are playing political games with the lives of our troops, and they will pay in blood. People will die pacifying Iraqi neighborhoods, then be forced to leave and the insurgents will come back. Then our troops will return and die trying to drive them out again while the Democrats complain that the war is unwinnable. Keep this in mind the next time you hear them talking about how they 'support the troops'. Sure they support us - they support our right to come home in body bags if it helps sweep them into office in 2008.
If they really 'supported the troops' they'd either demand an immediate troop withdrawal now and face the consequences at the ballot box (face it, there is no reason for another American to die if they don't intend us to win this war, and when you read this bill, it becomes quite plain that is the one thing the Democratic Party will not countenance) or honor up and get behind the surge.
You can see from what I have said that I am not advocating that Congress may not re-enter the field; I do not argue that the President has authority to wage war forever, and they may not say otherwise.The Senate has chosen to ignore that debt of honor. It intends, instead, to leave men in the field, but cut off their reinforcements. This is a dishonorable act, and a failure of faith. This is not what our fighting men deserve.
I have said specifically that they may use their Art. I powers to rescind the authorization and demand an end to the war. That isn’t explicit in the Constitution, but I think it’s a fair reading.
All I have asked is that we not cut off forces in the field from their support. If we aren’t going to support them, we should bring them home. If we aren’t going to bring them home, we should provision them.
You say the political class owes them nothing, but I disagree. They are owed something by every American, and the political class most of all. They are the ones who, when called, answered. They are the ones who left home and family, slept in dust storms, who have bled and died in the service to the will of the political class.
If that debt goes unanswered, there will be a price to be paid by our society. I do not know, in all truth and honesty, how to begin estimating it.
If that debt is not merely unpaid but denied — if people come to believe, as you have suggested, that the debt does not even exist — the price will be higher. The faith of a people in their nation reaps a beautiful interest in every endeavor that nation undertakes. A failure of faith, especially among that class that might be willing to volunteer for service, likewise exacts a usury that our nation will be sorry to pay.
"They are men who give service and loyalty to us. I will return their service by serving their interests; and I will return their loyalty with my own, as fiercely as they have given."
Not the slender majority of Honorable Men and Ladies in the United States Senate.
Ribs
Any recipe that calls for a Phillips-head screwdriver can't be all bad.
UPDATE: Six hours later, I can report that the recipe is a good sight better than "not all bad."
This sounds like an interesting book
Boomsday, a novel in which younger people refuse to pay Social Security benefits for the Baby Boomers, on the grounds that (a) such payments would be ruinous, and (b) the Baby Boomers were probably, in aggregate, the worst generation in American history. Point (b), at least, is true -- but only in aggregate. Some of the best people I've known in my life have been Boomers, whom I'd hate to see cast into the Outer Dark of age without the help they've relied upon in their budgetary forecasts.
So, here's my own "modest proposal" -- let's individually take care of those Boomers to whom we feel a personal debt, either as parents or teachers or for other good reason. Otherwise, let's end Social Security with the last of the WWII generation. Any Boomers who neglected to serve the next generation well enough to have loyal friends in it can fend for themselves, since it was only themselves they were ever interested in to begin with.
I'd say that was a reasonable compromise.
CMSA
Why, watching things go bang:
Click on that image and look at the 'tracers.' Those are the fragments of a wax bullet in .45 caliber, loaded into the brass for a .45 Long Colt. That cartridge is special in another way: no powder, but a shotgun primer. The result is an explosion with enough force to spit the wax bullet out and fragment it, but only to drive the fragments for a few feet.
That means you can bust a balloon with it, but it's no threat to anyone more than a few feet away. Just the thing for a bit of Cowboy Mounted Shooting.
If you're familiar with rodeo, this is most like barrel racing or pole bending. The difference is that you've got to unload two single action .45s while you race, with a five-second penalty for each missed shot.
It's a timed event, so riders get a move on:
There are ladies too, like this grinning girl:
The ladies competition is in a different class, but this is one of those sports where men and women can compete fairly closely. The best lady riders I saw ran only a few tenths of a second slower than the best men, but the gun penalties they incurred meant they were rated as having run five or ten seconds slower. Still, if they could manage the guns well enough to get a 'clean run,' they wouldn't have been that far off from the top scores.
Here's a picture of some of the tack for one horse, named for Forsyth County Georgia's own "Junior Samples" of stock car racing and Hee-Haw fame. Note the Yosemite Sam conchos:
Junior is a smart horse, which is why his rider didn't do very well. Roy Roger's horse Trigger was billed as "the smartest horse in the movies," but a smart horse is a danger. The problem is that they think for themselves, and come to conclusions about the proper course of action that are different from their riders'. As a result, they do something other than what you expect, which is a good way to get hurt.
All the same, with some argument, Junior finished his course.
It was an enjoyable weekend. No, I didn't do any such riding -- it was my first encounter with the event, and I have no horses trained for it. You want to be sure your horse is very comfortable with guns going off by his ears before you try to ride him in an event like this, I assure you.
Does seem like fun, though. Rodeo with guns. Not bad.
A Ray of Hope in Palestine?
One of the reasons I support the democracy project in the Middle East is the idea that most peoples (broadly speaking), given the chance to choose their leaders, will not elect governments that support terrorism and aggressive war. Another is that, if any voting public does support these things, democracy gives the public a way to stop them when they tire of them. Any war stops when someone's will to fight ends: the Soldiers', the military leadership's, the civilian leadership's, or, in a democracy, the voting public's.
So far, the results in Iraq and Afghanistan have been hopeful in this regard. The depressing counterexample has been the Palestinian Authority. Given the chance to form whatever political parties they pleased, and vote as they liked, the Palestinians threw virtually all their support to Hamas and Fatah, terrorist parties both. Yesterday, James Taranto linked to this story about a new Palestinian party, one that supports Israel's right to exist, and does not demand the "right of return." This party is explicitly Islamic, and may draw support that secular centrists cannot.
I haven't seen much commentary on this yet, and of course this new party hasn't been tried in elections, but I call it a ray of hope.
Some Links
Steve Dillard, better known here as Feddie of the now-retired Southern Appeal, has a letter in the American Spectator. In it he explains why Fred Thompson is his candidate of choice for 2008. I still prefer Duncan Hunter, but I appreciate the introduction to a candidate I knew little about.
I recall that some of you are young, unmarried men who might be curious about what impresses women. Fuzzybear Lioness answers your question, once and for all.
The new webcomic links include some good reading. I've been going back through the archives of Schlock Mercenary. The 4 August 2000 strip is priceless.
Since we just watched Zulu, you might be interested in several links about the British in the Coalition, and vice-versa.
Zulu
So. What did you think?
I'll start with this: does it make any difference that Hook was really a model soldier? An excellent film that takes unfair liberties with the life of a good man is still a remarkable work of art: but is it a moral act to make such a movie?
Discuss. :) Plus anything else you like.
In the comments to a post by BlackFive's Uncle Jimbo, documenting an attack on an Army recruiting center in Milwaulkee, Papa Ray left the following link. It is to some pictures of so-called peace activists burning a US soldier in effigy. Also an American flag.
I don't hold it against anyone that they're opposed to the war, for strategic reasons; I don't hold it against honest Quakers and other pacifists that they find war morally awful. Too, I am sure these idiots are a minority among the people who were demonstrating against the war -- part of that professional class of agitator, I expect.
They're using displays of this sort to try and stir up divisions among Americans, so that some of us will be mad and some of us will feel obligated to defend the behavior. The minute somebody who wouldn't burn a flag or a soldier's effigy pipes up in defense of those who did, rather than see the pro-war crowd claim the moral high ground, that burning becomes a little more acceptable in American society.
Let's not give them that. I'll respect honest differences with decent Americans who oppose the war but love the nation; in return, let's unite in condemning these scum.
Bumperstickers
Dr. Helen has a post on bumper stickers as personality tests. This reminds me of a story.
I once drove my wife's truck into D.C. for a meeting. On the way out of town, a woman on I-66 slammed right into the back of the truck. She wasn't paying any attention at all. It wasn't a hard hit, so I climbed out and glanced down at the bumper to see if it was hurt. No obvious damage.
That done, I walked back to the other car -- a nice Lexus SUV filled with nervous, well-dressed, overweight people -- and inquired as to whether anyone was hurt.
"What?" the lady driving asked, with fear-filled eyes.
It seemed odd to me that they were so visibly frightened by a minor accident, but I put it down to adrenaline. "Is anyone hurt?" I repeated.
"No! No!" she said.
"Then let's just forget about it," I told her with a smile, and turned around to walk back to the truck.
As I was doing so, I noticed the bumper sticker my wife, in a moment of oddball humor, had plastered right across the back:
KEEP HONKING -- I'M RELOADING.
I suspect that was a lot funnier with a little brunette driving, instead of me. :)
New Links II
Karrde has sent me his list of links, and I've re-re-fixed FbL's link to Project VALOUR-IT. With this newest set of links, I'm starting to think we may need to break out a separate section of links to online comics. Maybe I should dig up the link to Foamy the Squirrel...
Daniel
I thought I would share a picture of the family as, even in a virtual hall, it's nice to know who your 'speaking' with.
Shelly, myself, Kaitlin, Emily, & BarrettDecreased Violence. Moral Progress?
Division of Labour quotes from and links to a New Republic article (full article requires subscription) by Steven Pinker (I don't mean to subscribe but I'll see if I can find the print article this evening). The subject is a decrease in violence documented by "recent studies" - which I also mean to look for and look at when time allows. Right now I just wanted to provide the links to readers here.
This is obviously interesting in light of the opinion, shared by Grim and Daniel, that moral progress has not occurred and is not even possible. Something has changed our civilization from one in which cat-burning and bull-baiting were popular sports, into our own; something has changed slavery from a universal custom to a universal crime; something has changed our expectations of Soldiers, from predators to protectors. Perhaps these writings will improve our understanding of what that is.
This is interesting on the first half, of whether moral progress has occurred. The second half, of whether it can, will I think become moot as we learn to remake the species. But that is another story.
New Links
Note please that the websites for Soldiers Angels and Project VALOUR-IT have changed. The sidebar has been updated with the correct information (under "Support the Troops").
Also, Joe's favorites section is now available. Karrde still hasn't sent me his. :)
Yep
Not just my menu from yesterday (plus Guinness, of course, given the holiday), but also the topic of a humorous article by Daniel Clark. I'm not familiar with the gentleman, but I will have to read more of his stuff.
The latest point of emphasis in the global warming movement is that cattle farming endangers the planet by producing too much methane. So now, steaks and hamburgers are classified as instruments of destruction, along with large vehicles, lawn mowers, and charcoal grills. It can't be much longer before cowboy movies, cigars and hockey are held to be enemies of the earth as well....The author has some valid points to make about the coalition-structure of the modern protest industry. There are quite a few people now making their livings doing this, and have been since the anti-free trade protests of the 1990s.
Wouldn't it be more plausible if a few items like styling gel, latte makers and tofu were said to destroy the planet as well?
Thus, the global warming movement seeks to repress guyhood in order to perpetuate itself. If a guy is shown a picture of a sad-looking polar bear adrift on an ice floe, his first thought will be something like, "I've heard that bear steaks are tough, but maybe if you marinated them in beer, they'd turn out all right." At that point, the alarmists' emotional ploy is foiled.Oddly enough, I've never eaten bear steaks. I think it may be one of the few edible animals I haven't eaten, either here or in China.
I like my elk steaks, and my venison, marinated in beer, fresh garlic, and hot pepper (cayenne or something simliar). If it's really tough, get a hotter pepper -- the acids break down the muscle fiber, but most of the "heat" of the pepper will cook out.
Wars of the Roses Trilogy at ASF
The Alabama Shakespeare Festival has decided to show, all in one season, Shakespeare's plays dealing with the Wars of the Roses.
The problem this presents is simple enough - Richard III, the last play in the series, is one of Shakespeare's most popular; Henry VI, Part I is one of his worst and least popular (Joan of Arc is the villain). But showing Richard III by itself is dramatically incomplete, because the main characters all appeared in the previous two plays, and are continually making reference to them. Laurence Olivier's movie solved the problem by lifting a few speeches from Henry VI, Part III and simplifying the plot somewhat. The ASF solution was to collapse the first three plays into two, which they call "Henry VI, Part A" and "Henry VI, Part B." This evening, Mrs. W. and I went to see "Part B." It starts roughly in Act IV of Part II. There is some cutting and simplifying, but the best speeches are all there and the events make sense as presented.
I do recommend the production to those in striking distance of Montgomery - I would not cross the country to see it. Most of the performers pull it off. The costumes are a little strange (in particular, when fighting, the characters wear very obvious "white" and "red rose" emblems on their breasts). As of March 18, tickets are still available to all three plays (to talk to the box office, you'd think the productions were all packed; but we saw plenty of empty seats). I strongly recommend against attending the "bard talk" half an hour before the show; it contains very little to help a newcomer understand the play, the tone is condescending, and, worse, has a jolly-you-along flavor that detracts from the tragedy.
Ides of March
Today was my grandfather's birthday. He's been gone for quite a while now, long enough that I'm not really sure which birthday it would have been for him -- somewhere in the nineties. I'm going to put on his old Stetson, and repost a piece on the glory of Westerns from back in 2004. You'll see why.
Happy birthday.Times change. The cowboy doesn't. While our culture might sell out; the cowboy stays true to his values (and his horse). Rock stars, rap stars, movie stars come and go--loudly. The cowboy remains--quietly. When our children watch the Twin Towers crumble on CNN, they worry for our security, our future, our very foundation. The cowboy represents that foundation, that self-reliance, survival instinct, and integrity. We know that he'll ride out of that dusty ruin and survive, and with the grace of God he'll get the cattle to Amarillo. There's a little bit of him in every American. That's why we need him.
John Fusco, Screenwriter; Hidalgo
My father liked to watch Westerns when I was a boy. He was a big television watcher when he was home, which was only on the weekends. His job had him up and gone before the sun rose, and the only time of the year you'd see him before sunset was the summer -- because the day was longer in the summertime. On the weekend, though, he'd be at home, working at home and car repair, and serving as a volunteer fireman, instead of doing his regular job.
He would usually find some time on Sunday afternoon to watch some television. The TV was always on when he was home, and it would usually show one of three things: a football game, a NASCAR race, or a Western movie. These were dependable features.
I had no time for Westerns -- I very much preferred Star Wars movies, more progressive, not mired in the past. We lived out on the edge of civilization, it seemed, although I knew that there was more civilization if you just kept going: run far enough from Atlanta and you'll hit Chattanooga. But there was a large swath of country that lay out beyond the uttermost suburb where you'd find cattle country and timberland. North Georgia ground isn't very good, so other forms of farming don't work well. But you can raise cattle, and you can raise short needle pine for pulpwood. This all felt very far from the action, to a boy; I recognized Luke Skywalker's complaint about being on the planet farthest from the bright center of things, and greatly admired Han Solo.
So, I would usually leave my father to his Westerns. I still spent a fair amount of time with him when he was home, though, helping him work on the cars and with other tasks around the property. He spent a lot of that time telling stories, one right after another. Almost all of them were about growing up with my grandfather, who had run a body shop and service station for long haul truckers on I-75. In the imagination of youth, it sounded a great deal like Mos Eisley: there was a cantina filled with dangerous, armed men where my young father sometimes had to go to get and carry back family friends, and which produced occasional fights and drawn guns. Hot rods as finely tuned as any starfighters had occupied my father's free time as a young man. Freightliners paused there to gas up, seeming like smugglers, hauling over their limit, often running on amphetamines as much as gasoline. High stakes poker games ran in the back, while mechanics fixed up the rigs in the bays.
In the center of it all was my grandfather, a great and heroic figure, always armed with his revolver, so fearsome that none of the dangerous men who occupied the fringes of the story ever dared to trouble him. This part of the story I knew to be perfectly realistic, for I'd met the man myself. He had no exact Star Wars comparison. Star Wars would have been a different movie with "Jack T." in it. He was big, and strong, and fearless, hard-drinking but not controlled by the whisky, dangerous but kindhearted to the weak. He took care of his family and his friends, kept the peace among those who were passing through, and ran off the ones who wouldn't abide by his rules.
I always wanted to grow up to be just like him. He was the best man I'd ever heard of or met, so I thought as a boy.
Of course you've realized by now what kind of movie features a man like that.
You never know, with stories, exactly how much is an expression of the great archetypes. A lot has been written about Star Wars archetypes: Han Solo the pirate, Obi-Wan the Wizard, Luke as the Young Hero. The most resonant fiction is built on these archetypes, which speak to the depths of the human heart.
It happens with true stories too, though. Jack T. was the Sheriff, or the Marshall; but the Sheriff in the Western is also the King. Like all of these archetypes, he can be good or bad. The Bad King is a tyrant. The Good King keeps order in the world, upholds and cares for the weak, looks out for the poor, drives off the vicious. He has the power to punish and to pardon, which is seen in every Western: the bandit is run off or killed, but the harmless town drunk is endlessly forgiven and helped in his times of particular adversity.
The world can be violent and cruel, filled both with lawful and the lawbreakers. But the stories tell us that it can also be a good place, a happy place, if there is a good King. If this is the story of the Western, it is also the story of the Beowulf, whose time as king is peaceful in spite even of the existence of dragons. His death brings wild mourning, and the folk expect both death and slavery to follow, even though the dragon was slain.
Americans don't want Kings, but we still need the man even if we don't want the office. We want a free-born man, chosen by his equals rather than by his birth -- and in this, it happens that we are following precisely in the footsteps of the Geats, whose kings were elected by the folk.
I inherited my grandfather's Stetson after he died. I wear it often, when I don't wear my own. I carry a revolver, legally and licensed in several states. I find, when I have time that I don't have to spend working, that there's little I want more than to settle in with a good Western. In this, I am just like many Americans, apparently including Doc. We are seeing in our own way the same, ancient things:It was decidedly cool for Houston, a harbinger for the frost that would set in that night. Anyway, I was walking along in the cool of the evening with a Justin cowboy hat on my head, and Alice on my hip, when I looked up and I saw a most amazing sunset. It was all gold and burning over the rooftops. Little broad streaks of copper and gold clouds fixed high above in a sea of ultramarine blue, while I was drowned beneath in a cool breeze. It was just gorgeous. I paused from my errand for a minute, awed by a beauty that must have awed man in discrete moments throughout the ages, from ancient Greece to a greek eatery in modern Texas.
In the end, I suppose I did turn out to be just like my grandfather. I'm old enough now to know that he wasn't exactly the man who was painted for me. Having become him, I can see only too clearly some of the flaws he must have borne, which now I bear.
Also, I realize -- not quite too late -- that Jack T. was not the best man I've ever known. My father is. I wanted to be like his father not because his father was better than him, but because his father was the man he most respected and admired in the world. All I wanted was for him to respect and admire me just like that.
If the stories proved not to be completely accurate, they were nevertheless perfectly true. I may not always succeed at being a good man, but I know how. I know how to be a good man because my father told me. He told me about his father. Now I have a son, and I have to tell him. Nothing can capture the value of this gift, or the weight of this duty. I have heard only too often the laments of those who did not receive what I was given, who do not know how to pass on what I must.
The Western is our national epic. It is the way in which Americans, the ones who still remember how, pass on the eternal truths to the next generation.
Doc
I simply can't see it, but he seems concerned. As far as I can tell, Doc is a good man and a brave one. No doubt he is honest, however, about the reasons for his fears. I gather he and I are roughly of an age; Daniel and Eric, here, I think are as well. It is natural to have volunteered and done little enough -- myself less than any of you, due to being medical'd out straightaway -- and now watch these young Marines serving three and four tours, and wonder.
Would we have done as well, had circumstances been different, and war come in our time instead of theirs? I think the only honest answer is: I hope so. Indeed, to speak for Doc Russia, I believe so. I have no doubt of it. It is natural, though, to wonder.
UPDATE: A response to an early comment from Joe (excerpt in italics) is perhaps more useful than the original post. I trust that Doc won't take offense at my using him as a subject for philosophical inquiry; it is not meant unkindly. Insofar as he joins John Wayne and Theodore Roosevelt, perhaps he'll take it as I mean it: a recognition that I think his character is worthy of study as a useful example.
"I'm not entirely clear why that bothers him. This relates to your most excellent post on John Wayne. A brave man doesn't do things "because he is brave" -- that seems literally impossible to me -- and certainly shouldn't do them to "show that he is courageous." He does things for other reasons; but his bravery shows up in how he deals with fear and danger."That's Aristotelian -- if you fear no danger, according to Aristotle, you're not practicing the virtue of bravery but a vice that arises from an excess of bravery (just as cowardice is the vice of having an insufficient amount of bravery). This was one of two kinds of vice he thought could arise from an excess of courage, the other being rashness:
"[H]e would be a sort of madman or insensible person if he feared nothing, neither earthquakes nor the waves, as they say the Celts do not; while the man who exceeds in confidence about what really is terrible is rash."
I'll argue that there is a sort of sacred madness at work here, of the sort also practiced by the beserker in other places and times, and which I think Doc can speak to somewhat, as you may find if you read his piece on 'the Machine.' It's something I can attest to as well -- many of us can. It isn't the normal virtue, and perhaps Aristotle is right to say it is a sort of madness. But there it is.
This is why I say I am sure Doc is no coward -- I can see from his writing that he has lived both the virtue you describe, and the madness Aristotle did. He is not apt to have forgotten either.
What I think he has is that sense of shame that arises from (as someone once said) realizing that you are limited -- there are two different things you should be doing, but you can do only one. Though you may succeed at the one you choose, that can't help but feel like failure. Indeed, you do fail one of the two duties; but you would have failed one or the other.
The Elks in Montana
A longtime milblog reader wrote me to ask for some help getting the word out about a war memorial his Elks lodge is building. BlackFive was kind enough to put up a post about it, which you can see here. The multimedia parts of it were a bit beyond me -- I only just figured out how to post pictures.
It's good to see the soldiers being honored in this way. Have a look.
The American Scholar has a piece in defiance of science.
While I was sitting one night with a poet friend watching a great opera performed in a tent under arc lights, the poet took my arm and pointed silently. Far up, blundering out of the night, a huge Cecropia moth swept past from light to light over the posturings of the actors. “He doesn’t know,” my friend whispered excitedly. “He’s passing through an alien universe brightly lit but invisible to him. He’s in another play; he doesn’t see us. He doesn’t know. Maybe it’s happening right now to us."There's a lot more.
I'm starting to think the Eighth district down here in Georgia must be a fine place full of good people. My brother Southern Democrat Jim Marshall turns up again, this time on a MyDD hit list.
That's got to be a comfortable place for a Georgian to sit. I see Congressman John Barrow is on the list too, from the 12th. He didn't stand up against the "nonbinding resolution," but Jim did.
These boys are making me proud. It's good to know you're not alone in holding the line. There are a few of us left, damn few -- but a few.
Ok, its apparently my turn to pick a film. Although I think Joseph was angling for Conan the Barbarian, Conan is pretty much a fantasy, and really can't be taken that seriously, however much it is enjoyable. Plus, the the review that J.W. linked to pretty much sums up the movie, to point that it almost isn't worth watching.
Instead, I'm actually going to pick Zulu, the movie that dramatizes the action at Rourke's Drift, during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. This is one of those films you of which you can honestly say "They don't make them like that anymore."
When made in 1964, the British Empire was barely a memory. There were enough people who actually knew the various Victoria Cross winners from this action to get miffed at some of the dramatic license take with the characters.
When I first saw this movie as a child, I was very much impressed, not just by the story, but by the movie's treatment of both the British Soldiers and the Zulus. Plus, the production was great, what with the solid acting, great costumes and John Barry's soundtrack. Although you are obviously supposed to root for the British, the Zulus are not treated badly, though the story necessarily keeps them at a distance. There is definitely some sympathy for them.
The movie does contain what I'd call a "post Imperial" subtext running through it. See if you can pick up on this.
As an added feature, I'm adding a "Read more about it" section. The links are to very good works on the Zulus and the 1879 war.
The Washing of the Spears
Brave Men's Blood
The movie should be commonly available. Look for the widescreen format. It must have been quite impressive on the wide screen.
The Wild Bunch
A few weeks ago, I mentioned a new batch of horses:
One of them in particular, named Sherlock, really does not like to have his feet messed with. Even now that he has shoes on, you have to rope him three different ways to clean his back feet, and he still tries to get you.It's getting to be a little less hilarious as time goes along. That trainer I mentioned got thrown again by one of the others, and I got bucked off one that spooked because of a dump truck. He dumped me the small of my back, right on a big chunk of quartz. After eight or ten X-rays, the doctor decided nothing was broken, but he mentioned that this was somewhat surprising under the circumstances. This is the other reason I mentioned for not blogging much last week -- I was busy taking opiates.
They were at one point or another broken to riding, but, ah, not all of it stuck with them all the way down to Georgia. We train horses both for Western trail riding and various English sports, and so we have several trainers who work with the animals. Our top dressage trainer got bucked right off the new mare last week, which is always hilarious as long as nobody really gets hurt.
The thing is that these are all draft crosses. They're tall and very heavy, every one of them at least sixteen hands and 1200-1400 pounds. When they start to buck, it's almost more like bullriding than bronco riding. Getting these horses rebroken to saddle is proving to be exciting.
Here's the one I was riding today, whose name is Delaney.
Doesn't he look like a sweetheart? And he'd better behave like one, too, because he's a little bit big:
The dog's name is Penny. She really is a sweetheart.
Shadow Wolves
You may have seen this story from the Australian, which notes that US Customs' band of Native American trackers, the Shadow Wolves, is being sent to hunt al Qaeda:
An elite group of Native American trackers is joining the hunt for terrorists crossing Afghanistan's borders.Ahe'ee, gentlemen. Good hunting.
The unit, the Shadow Wolves, was recruited from several tribes, including the Navajo, Sioux, Lakota and Apache. It is being sent to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to pass on ancestral sign-reading skills to local border units.
In recent years, members of the Shadow Wolves have mainly tracked smugglers along the US border with Mexico.
But the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan and the US military's failure to hunt down Osama bin Laden - still at large on his 50th birthday on Saturday - has prompted the Pentagon to requisition them.
US Defence Secretary Robert M.Gates said last month: "If I were Osama bin Laden, I'd keep looking over my shoulder."
The Pentagon has been alarmed at the ease with which Taliban and al-Qa'ida fighters have been slipping in and out of Afghanistan. Defence officials are convinced their movements can be curtailed by the Shadow Wolves.
The unit has earned international respect for its tracking skills in the Arizona desert. It was founded in the early 1970s to curb the flow of marijuana into the US from Mexico and has since tracked people-smugglers across hundreds of square kilometres of the Tohono O'odham tribal reservation, southwest of Tucson.
Harold Thompson, a Navajo Indian, and Gary Ortega, from the Tohono reservation, are experts at "cutting sign", the traditional Indian method of finding and following minute clues from a barren landscape. They can detect twigs snapped by passing humans or hair snagged on a branch and tell how long a sliver of food may have lain in the dirt.
Name Newspaper
If you're a reader of this blog, and a resident of Virginia, I'll bet you can find your name printed here in the Roanoke Times.
That's because they've taken it upon themselves to print the whole list of people with concealed carry permits in the state. Want to know if that girl you were stalking carries a gun? No problem! The Roanoke Times is there for you.
Christian Trejbal, a reporter with the Times, thought it was important. You can read his explanation here. He's right to say that it's a matter of public record, of course. Whether it exposes anyone to a greater chance of being visited by burglars (if they are reported to be gun owners) or rapists (if they are reported not to be) is of no concern; he has only printed the truth.
As he says:
A state that eagerly puts sex offender data online complete with an interactive map could easily do the same with gun permits, but it does not.Indeed, it's easy to see the connection between sex offenders convicted by a jury of their peers, and people who have undergone a background check that has determined they have never committed any crime.
The Times does offer contact information for their editors. If you have an opinion about having your name made available to wary criminals (or the fact that you don't carry a gun made available to them) -- you can write them here.
Bravado
I was struck by this rant against bravado that arose in response to a piece in the NYT on barbecue joints. Both were linked by Ann Althouse, sitting in at InstaPundit. The piece is essentially irritated by a mode that tries to portray things as more dangerous than they really are:
Why does everyone in this country have to brag about how tough they are, how hip they are, how mean the streets are down which they walk? When did it start? With Brando in 1954, vrooming through town in leather bomber jacket and shades and never imagining how he would end up? Or John Wayne, who didn't serve in World War II but could beat up anyone on the screen? Or Hemingway, who advised Midwesterners where to eat in Madrid after paying to watch other men risk their lives?I'd like to suggest that this isn't an "American" thing so much as it is an urban thing -- I've seen it most often from New York City residents living or traveling elsewhere, and trying to impress the locals with the fact that they're from NYC. (Indeed, the stupidest words I ever heard a man say were of this ilk, passed out of the mouth of a man who didn't understand that he was in a bar in North Carolina and being overheard by numerous other patrons. They were addressed to a local young lady at whom he'd taken offense, and were: "Listen, b***, I'm from the Bronx and..." at which point in his sentence he was 'overtaken by events.')
We've been copying those acts for almost a century, and it's bullshit, Americans, it's just a load of it. It's damaged the national character, all this vain posturing. It's why some of the most gifted craftsmen in the nation spend their careers making the same gangster movie over and over, saying millions of dollars' worth of nothing. It's why the most popular genre of music in the past generation, hip-hop, is based almost entirely on empty, juvenile boasts of sexual prowess.
I've a friend from Chicago who is similar on these points, so I won't say it's a NYC thing; and the fellow is right to point to hip-hop culture.
He is wrong, however, to try and tarnish John Wayne with it just because he wasn't in the service in WWII. This happens to be the year that would have marked John Wayne's 100th birthday; that means that in 1941 he was thirty-four, well past the age of the draft, and fully sixteen years past the normal age for enlistment. He might have been especially praiseworthy for enlisting in spite of being sixteen years older than the young men he'd have served beside; but he is hardly blameworthy for having chosen to serve in other capacities. If our current Hollywood crop served their country at this time as well as he did in his, we would be far better off as a nation.
Wayne was certainly no coward, in spite of having not been a veteran. Michael Pate, who played the Apache chief Vittorio in 1953's Hondo, noted in his interview on the DVD version that Wayne had exhibited a number of feats of horsemanship that were both dangerous and impressive. Most particularly, Wayne had ridden behind Pate during his own most dangerous scenes, just far enough outside of the camera to avoid being in the picture, but close enough to dash forward and help control Pate's horse if it had panicked or gotten out of control. Pate, no horseman himself, said that Wayne was right there with him at every take to make sure he came out all right.
Horses are huge and powerful, and they are also prey animals and herd animals in nature. This means they spook and frighten easily, as nature has bred it into them by destroying those who did not; it means also that they pick up clues of fear from each other very readily. It takes a certain courage to ride a horse at the gallop at all. To be prepared to charge into a panicked horse with your own, both of them running headlong, to try to win control of the reins and save a companion -- that's courage worth the name.
Wayne at his best shows us what is the natural and right expression of the confidence that comes from learning to face danger. He had bravery, not bravado. It carries through on the screen, and is why he remains an inspiration to us all. John Wayne will be America's contribution to the world's literature: when even Hemingway is forgotten, a few of Wayne's films will remain. In a real sense, he is America's Shakespeare -- he didn't write the lines, but like the Bard, he used the stage to show us something about both the national character and human virtue.
Bravery and courage were a topic of great interest for Aristotle and Plato; both discuss it at length. The Laches has Socrates engaged in a discussion about how (and if) it can be encouraged and developed. Could practice fighting in armor help young men develop it? We, as a culture, certainly could use a movement from bravado to bravery -- although, as our servicemen have shown in Iraq and elsewhere, we have quite a few truly brave men and women.
What makes the brave? Two things: learning to overcome danger, and the guidance and example of older men. This means that it is necessary to expose oneself to real danger to become brave. Yet, as brave men are necessary to creating a safe society, there is a paradox: exposure to danger helps create safety. It is only the man who has learned to fight that can protect his home. By becoming more dangerous, he makes everyone safer. The more men who become more dangerous in this way, the safer is society as a whole.
Mr. Cohen, the author of the original rant, is right to point to juvenile behavoir as the problem. What is necessary is to have old men who are examples for the young, men of the type that the young wish to emulate. I discussed this problem separately and at some length in Social Harmony (you will have to scroll down in that archive -- New Blogger has broken the permalink).
The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous.John Wayne was an example like that, and is still. He is there for every American, pointing the way. We are lucky to have him, and in this of all years, ought to take some time to appreciate what he offers us.
Very nearly all the violence that plagues, rather than protects, society is the work of young males between the ages of fourteen and thirty. A substantial amount of the violence that protects rather than plagues society is performed by other members of the same group. The reasons for this predisposition are generally rooted in biology, which is to say that they are not going anywhere, in spite of the current fashion that suggests doping half the young with Ritalin.
The question is how to move these young men from the first group (violent and predatory) into the second (violent, but protective). This is to ask: what is the difference between a street gang and the Marine Corps, or a thug and a policeman? In every case, we see that the good youths are guided and disciplined by old men. This is half the answer to the problem.
But do we not try to discipline and guide the others? If we catch them at their menace, don't we put them into prisons or programs where they are monitored, disciplined, and exposed to "rehabilitation"? The rates of recidivism are such that we can't say that these programs are successful at all, unless the person being "rehabilitated" wants and chooses to be. And this is the other half of the answer: the discipline and guidance must be voluntarily accepted. The Marine enlists; the criminal must likewise choose to accept what is offered.
The Eastern martial arts provide an experience very much like that of Boot Camp. The Master, like the Drill Instructor, is a disciplined man of great personal prowess. He is an exemplar. He asks nothing of you he can't, or won't, do himself--and there are very many things he can and will do that are beyond you, though you have all the help of youth and strength. It is on this ground that acceptance of discipline is won. It is the ground of admiration, and what wins the admiration of these young men is martial prowess.
Everyone who was once a young man will understand what I mean. Who could look forward, at the age of sixteen or eighteen, to a life of obedience, dressed in suits or uniforms, sitting or standing behind a desk? How were you to respect or care about the laws, or the wishes, of men who had accepted such a life? The difficulty is compounded in poor communities, where the jobs undertaken are often menial. How can you respect your father if your father is a servant? Would you not be accepting a place twice as low as his? Would you not rather take up the sword, and cut yourself a new place? Meekness in the old men of the community unmakes the social order: it encourages rebellion from the young.
The traditional martial arts tend to teach young men to undertake flashy and impressive, but not terribly effective, fighting techniques. Only as you grow older do the masters of the art teach you the real secrets--the subtle, quick, physically simple ways in which the human body can be destroyed. In this way, the old retain their power over the young--although they lack the speed and strength, they have in discipline in training more than enough to maintain the order. Social harmony is maintained in the dojo: the young revere the old, and seek to emulate them. Your father may be a servant, but he is still a warrior--and a more dangerous one than you. The father, being past that age in which biology makes us vicious, guides the son or neighbor to protect society rather than to rend it. It is not particularly different in the military.
If we would have a stable society, we must have dangerous old men. This means that, if you are yourself on your way to becoming an old man, you have a duty to society to begin your preparations. The martial arts are not the only road--my own grandfather did it through a simple combination of physical strength, personal discipline, and an accustomed habit of going armed about his business. There was never a more impressive figure--or, at least, there was never a boy more impressed than was I.
The martial virtues are exactly the ones needed. By a happy coincidence, having a society whose members adhere to and encourage those virtues makes us freer as well--we need fewer police, fewer courts, fewer prisons, fewer laws, and fewer lawyers.
Leather Care
Leather care is an important part of the outdoor life, although many good synthetics exist now that don't require much care at all. I've become a believer in synthetic materials on saddles and bridles, for example -- the leather ones look a little nicer, and feel better in the hand, but they require so much more care and replacement. Still, I do have and use quite a bit of leather, whether boots or vests or holsters/scabbards or other similar things.
I find that there are basically three kinds of leather goods in terms of care. There are leather goods you need to have waterproofed, which are a separate type. Then, of goods that don't really need to be waterproof, there are those you don't care if they darken, and those that you would prefer did not darken.
For waterproofing leather, I use mink oil. It can completely reject water once it is worked into the leather (or across the surface of the synthetic). It creates a fairly ugly, waxy buildup over time and numerous applications, but this too can be a minor advantage if you are in a really damp climate or get wet regularly: any mold or mildew will grow in that waxy buildup, which can be scraped off and a fresh coat reapplied. This is much better than having it grow within the leather itself.
For working leathers that don't need to be waterproof, I use neatsfoot oil. It creates a soft, supple leather (that is also somewhat water resistant). Leather treated in this way will be stronger than untreated leather, and the neatsfoot oil penetrates into the leather better than anything else I've found. However, it darkens leather quite a bit even with the first application.
For leather you'd rather keep the same color it is right now, I've tried several things. I normally use Bick-4 for these things, as it doesn't darken the leather, penetrates moderately well, and does show some decent results.
However, I've recently discovered that Armor All's leather wipes work wonderfully. I hadn't thought of using them because they are made for automotive leather; but one day I tried them out on that vest I mentioned a while back. The formula they use penetrates well, makes the leather very soft and supple, and doesn't darken at all.
I have only two complaints about it: it takes five or six of the wipes to finish off the vest, which is just because it soaks into the leather so quickly and well that the wipe is dry before you know it. The only other thing is that you have to reapply it somewhat often by comparison to neatsfoot oil to retain the suppleness.
Still, it works as well as anything I've yet discovered. I thought I'd pass that along while I was thinking about it.
The man begins a good piece, on a problem we've discussed here from time to time:
I attended a fascinating conference on neuropsychiatry recently. Neuroscience, it seems to me, is the current most hopeful candidate for the role of putative but delusory answer to all Mankind's deepest questions.He asks a few questions out of experience, which might be informative to those of you thinking about the issues.
What did you say?
I step out for the afternoon, and come back to find that DC's gun laws have been ruled unconstitutional, on the grounds that the court is recognizing the Second Amendment's guarantee of an individual right to bear arms.
This is one of those headlines like, "Extraterrestrial life discovered," or "UFO lands on White House lawn, offers cures for all disease." It's great news, but... one may need a day or two to believe it really happened.
Volokh has quite a bit on the subject -- keep scrolling if you are curious.
Fun, fun
If you're wondering why it's been a bit slow around here, there are two good reasons. One of them I'll save for a separate post.
The second one was that the computer fan burned out. I had to swap it out; the new one turned out to have the wrong RPMs, which caused the BIOS to shut down instantly.
So I contacted the company, Cooler Master, which sent me a proper replacement by mail (for free, too). I got the thing back up and running today; otherwise, I've been on my old, slow, barely functional backup computer, normally housed in the closet.
Great to be back on the real rig! Or, rather, it was for an hour -- then the power supply burned out anyway, as apparently its internal fan had also died.
Well, back to Fry's. The closest one is in Alpharetta -- which is like an hour each way -- but there is one minor compensation. In addition to having a lot of parts, they also have the best collection of Westerns on DVD you'll likely find anywhere.
The End of War
We have seen the beginnings of wars in our lifetime. Would you like to see the end of one?
Read this, then. (h/t John Donovan)
Then, if you like, you might read this review.
Cherokee vote
The Cherokee nation today voted to revoke the citizenship of descendants of their former slaves. This is an interesting matter, since tribal citizenship isn't covered by the 14th Amendment (i.e., Alabama can't vote to revoke the citizenship of descendants of slaves, b/c the nature of "citizenship" in Alabama is established in the Federal Constitution). The Cherokee are therefore presumably free to do it, but it opens a lot of interesting questions about why they would.
I'm not sure why the Cherokee wished to do it, as the article offers no explanation but "racism." I wonder if "gambling receipts" aren't a more plausible explanation -- I believe I'm right to say that the Cherokee operate the only functioning casino within hundreds of miles of Georgia, Tennessee, or the Carolinas in Cherokee, NC.
Yet by cutting off their freedman branch, they're also cutting down on the number of votes they have in US government elections, as well as state elections. It's an odd thing to have done, then, to alienate a substantial number of your supporters.
One thing that many people have mentioned over the last few years is the degree to which multiculturalism and 'identity politics' have led to a fracturing of America. Here we see that happening literally: even an established identity is being fractured, with advocates of the break claiming that it's really about who they are as a people. Turnout for the vote was higher than for the vote on their national constitution, so it's an area that really is of deep meaning and importance to them.
Something to watch -- a canary in the mine, maybe.
Yo, ho
Looks like they found Blackbeard's ship.
Several officials said historical data and coral-covered artifacts recovered from the site - including 25 cannons, which experts said was a large number for the area in the early 18th century - remove any doubt the wreckage belonged to Blackbeard.Blackbeard was a fascinating character, in that he seems to have used literal terrorism to achieve his ends rather than violence. He built up a mighty reputation for cruelty and violence, and yet there is no historical evidence that he ever killed anyone at all.
Contrast with the French pirate L'Ollonais:
L'Ollonais approached it from its undefended landward side and took it. His pirates then proceeded to pillage the city, but found that most of the residents had fled and that their gold had been hidden. L'Ollonais' men tracked down the residents and tortured them until they revealed the location of their possessions. They also seized the fort's cannon and demolished most of the town's defence walls to ensure that a hasty retreat was possible.They probably won't find any relics of L'Ollonais, however, as he was apparently captured and eaten by cannibals.
L'Ollonais himself was an expert torturer, and his techniques included slicing portions of flesh off the victim with a sword, burning them alive, or "woolding", which involved tying knotted rope around the victim's head until their eyes were forced out.
Adding Francis
I have finally remembered to add Special Forces blogger Francis Marion to the blogroll. I am terrible at the tech side of this blogging business, I know.
If any of you want me to add some links, let me know in the comments or by email. Joe, you should know that you're entitled to a "Joe's Favorites" section if you've got some blogs or whatever that aren't already on the list. Same for you, Karrde.
Finally, Karrde reminds me that we need to do a Grim's Hall Movie Club soon. Eric Blair gets to pick the film this time. Take it away, Eric.
PJM Today
Some very interesting stuff in the morning mail from Pajamas Media. The Glen & Helen show is on training the Afghan police; and you can read about the successes of the surge from Baghdad editor Omar Fadhil, in "Life During War."
Jules Crittenden has a piece wondering about a coming dark age, which is rather old hat for most of us here, but it's interesting to see the concept penetrating into the mainstream. For now, he's still writing elegies for the glories that may be past; keep your eyes out for when they start running simulation games.
Texas Independence
In a shack alongside the majestic Brazos River, my native country was formed. On March 2, 1836, the Convention of 1836 led by Richard Ellis declared their Independence from Mexico. They elected David G. Burnett as Interim-President. He wasn't very notable, but he did challenge Sam Houston to a duel in later years.
Four days after it was signed, the Alamo fell.
Contest - Novel/Movie
I'd like to propose a contest to Grim's Hall readers. If the first phase goes well, I have a second phase in mind; but let's see how the first phase works.
I'd like you each, in the comments, to tell me what character from literature most reminds you of yourself. Then, what movie and which character from that movie most reminds you of yourself going through your life.
If you know how to do links, and want to link to the novel/movie at Amazon, that'd be a good idea. Also, if you are planning to cite an obscure work, you can also cite a second-best example that people are more likely be familiar with. Your call.
The main rule here is not to laugh at anyone for what they come up with. Obviously, movies are more dramatic than real life usually is. If somebody says that James Bond reminds him of himself, and you happen to know that he is an accountant (say), no laughing. :) The point here is that he relates to the stories; they mean something to him.
Finally, the last question for the third phase is: is there any character created in the last ten years, either from literature or the movies, who you really feel relates to you or your life? In other words, are our stories getting better -- or is the story-creating industry losing touch with us? I suspect the latter, but I want to put it to the test.
Permalinks
Castle Argghhh! linked us this morning, with this note:
Grim provides an old school example that seems to support JRobb’s Global Guerillas theory. Scary. [Armorer's interjection - Grim's permalink URL isn't behaving as expected. The post Ry is referring to is "The Old Model Army" which is the top post for 27 Feb at Grim's Hall.]That's right -- all permalinks have been broken since we moved to New Blogger, including both the old ones from before the move, and the new once since. I've been trying to work a solution out through Blogger's help mechanisms (such as they are), but have given up.
Anyone who might know about moving a blog from Blogger to another service, please email me by clicking on the shield, above. I know how to use both MovableType and TypePad, but I don't know how to move the archives and stuff. Any help would be appreciated.
7 Words
Proposed by InstaPunk, now performed by Newsbuckit, who gives his methodology. I ran the test on Grim's Hall, and our score is zero.
Now, the method he chose won't search the comments here, so it's possible some of you folks have been profane on occasion down in the HaloScan section of the blog. My good co-bloggers, however, have demonstrated gentlemanly restraint (given the topics we discuss here sometimes, a whole lot of restraint).
Gore / Carbon sink
So, by now we've all heard about Gore's gigantic house, and his likewise gigantic electrical bill. (If you haven't, see here and its supporting links). The defense is, essentially, that Gore is "carbon neutral" by using services that plant trees for him, offsetting his power usage.
So my question is: What about this?
Although the United States and Canada produce a substantial amount of industrial carbon dioxide emissions, a new study contends that the North American continent is a net carbon sink whose vegetation may be absorbing the entire annual emissions of the two countries.... Fan attributes the North American sink to four factors:The last one is ironic: global warming from greenhouse gases yields longer growing seasons for agriculture, which in theory reduce global warming by greenhouse gases.
* U.S. forests are being replenished, in part by new methods of feeding livestock brought on by a growing demand for meat. For example, during the last century hogs and cattle were permitted to wander the mountainous areas of the eastern United States. Today, however, such animals are restricted to concentrated areas like feed lots.
* Air in the Northern Hemisphere is rich in nitrogen (a plant food), thanks to the area’s industry and agriculture. Science reported in 1992 that nitrogen fertilization was stimulating European forests in the same manner and surmised that China and tropical rain forests were sure to follow this trend.
* Increased amounts of CO2 increase photosynthesis and water-use efficiency.
* Satellite data indicate a lengthening of the growing season in the highest latitudes.
But as to the larger question: if North America is a carbon sink, does that mean we can just carry on like this forever? If it's good enough for Al Gore, why shouldn't we do just as we like also? We're planting trees too -- lots of them.
VCDL Update
VCDL has posted a lot of pictures and video from the event mentioned yesterday. You can also read some members' writeups. They've got a page with links to all that here.
I wish we had a VCDL in Georgia. I may have to look into starting one...